'Love on a Bet' (1936)

Love on a Bet

Cast: Gene Raymond, Wendy Barrie

USDVD release date: 5 Feb 2013

RKO released this brash, fast-talking road-trip-cum-romantic-comedy the year after It Happened One Night, and while this forgotten picture certainly doesn’t match its famous model, it’s not shabby. Warner Archive has just released it through their on-demand service.

Gene Raymond plays Michael, an attractive, typically American mix of chutzpah and charm. He wants his wealthy uncle to finance his friend’s play, a romantic comedy about a penniless man who leaves New York in his underwear and arrives ten days later in Los Angeles in a new suit with a hundred dollars and a girlfriend. When his uncle tells him the story is unbelievable, Michael bets he turn fiction into truth. Soon he runs into a poor but beautiful heroine (Wendy Barrie) who’s on her way to marry a rich guy in Los Angeles. Along for the ride is her aunt (Helen Broderick), who can match our hero wisecrack for wisecrack.

Over 75 years later, it remains a fresh, breezy story full of incident and verbal wit, thanks to overqualified writers P.J. Wolfson (a crime novelist and later producer) and the illustrious Philip G. Epstein (who often collaborated with his brother Julius J. Epstein) and director Leigh Jason. The credit belongs to the script more than to Jason; the same year, he directed Raymond, Broderick, and Barbara Stanwyck in the much less clever The Bride Walks Out.

Love on a Bet

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Michael Barrett is a San Antonio-based freelance writer who tries not to leave the house. He has degrees from Trinity University in San Antonio and University of California at Davis. He watches one film a day. In addition to his features and reviews on PopMatters, see also his PopMatters column, Canon Fodder. Since the early '90s he has written a monthly video column for the San Antonio Express-News, and his national publications include Library Journal and the Chicago-based Nostalgia Digest.